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Who was Saint Patrick?
Everyone knows of St Patrick, but what do we know about him? Simply that it was he who `converted the Irish to Christianity'. The strange fact is that for two hundred years or so after his death, although his name was remembered with respect, everything else about him was forgotten. E.A. Thompson pieces together the story of his life, drawing his evidence from the only real clues that exist, Patrick's own writings, not from the later Lives. He reveals him as coming from a well-to-do nominally Christian family in Britain, being captured by Irish raiders and forced into slavery in Co Mayo, converting to a most earnest Christianity, and eventually escaping from Ireland to the fulfillment of his calling. As a bishop, he is shown to have been a man of profound originality, and his writings - his Confession and his Letter to Coroticus - further display his character. It is no surprise that a host of legends became attached to his name, and the biography is completed with a look at some of those early legends. Preface to paperback edition by COLMAN ETCHINGHAM, Maynooth.E.A. THOMPSON was Professor of Classics at Nottingham University.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
50 people want to read
About the author
Edward Arthur Thompson
10 books10 followersEdward Arthur Thompson (22 May 1914 – 1 January 1994) was a British classicist, medievalist and professor at the University of Nottingham from 1948 to 1979. He wrote from a Marxist perspective, and argued that the Visigoths were settled in Aquitaine to counter the internal threat of the peasant bagaudae. Thompson's work remains the most substantial study of the Goths in Spain.
Thompson was born on 22 May 1914 in the town of Waterford, southern Ireland to an Presbyterian family of both Irish and Scottish descent. Although taught to read only at the age of eight, Thompson proceeded to attend and finish at The High School, Dublin, with which he maintained sufficient links to be requested by its then-headmaster, Dr. John Bennett, to send a copy of A History of Attila and the Huns when Thompson published the book in 1948.
Although his father worked for the administration of the National Health Insurance, Edward Thompson would be the first of his family to enter university: he graduated with First Class Honours in Classics from Trinity College, Dublin in 1936, later attributing his selection of the classics as a discipline to the arbitrary choice of his headmaster at The High School.
Thompson's first appointment in academe, as Lecturer in Classics, was a two-year stint at Trinity College, Dublin – although initially appointed for one year, Thompson's contract was renewed, and he stayed on (though at a reduced salary) until 1941. Already prepared to enter the Second World War with an enlistment in the British Army, Thompson finally secured an appointment at the University of Swansea, having learned of an opening for somebody who could teach Greek from a friend, Swansea classicist Ben Farrington.
From Swansea, Thompson transferred to King's College, London, teaching as a classics lecturer from 1945 to 1948. It was during this time that Thompson's first book, Ammianus Marcellinus, was published in Britain. He subsequently moved once more – this time to direct the classics department at the University of Nottingham, where Thompson worked from 1948 to 1979. Until his retirement in 1979, Thompson served as the first Chairman of the Editorial Board of the scholarly journal Nottingham Medieval Studies, founded by Lewis Thorpe in 1957.
He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1964 – the first University of Nottingham academic to be so honoured.
Although Thompson left the staunchly pro-Soviet Communist Party of Great Britain in 1956, the year of the Soviet Union's intervention in Hungary, Thompson's academic work continued to demonstrate a Marxist-oriented outlook on history. No longer active in political life, he continued his enthusiastic interest for politics. Thompson's interest in the class structure of societies, and in their material basis, continued to direct the structure of his studies. He died, aged 79, in Nottingham.
Thompson was born on 22 May 1914 in the town of Waterford, southern Ireland to an Presbyterian family of both Irish and Scottish descent. Although taught to read only at the age of eight, Thompson proceeded to attend and finish at The High School, Dublin, with which he maintained sufficient links to be requested by its then-headmaster, Dr. John Bennett, to send a copy of A History of Attila and the Huns when Thompson published the book in 1948.
Although his father worked for the administration of the National Health Insurance, Edward Thompson would be the first of his family to enter university: he graduated with First Class Honours in Classics from Trinity College, Dublin in 1936, later attributing his selection of the classics as a discipline to the arbitrary choice of his headmaster at The High School.
Thompson's first appointment in academe, as Lecturer in Classics, was a two-year stint at Trinity College, Dublin – although initially appointed for one year, Thompson's contract was renewed, and he stayed on (though at a reduced salary) until 1941. Already prepared to enter the Second World War with an enlistment in the British Army, Thompson finally secured an appointment at the University of Swansea, having learned of an opening for somebody who could teach Greek from a friend, Swansea classicist Ben Farrington.
From Swansea, Thompson transferred to King's College, London, teaching as a classics lecturer from 1945 to 1948. It was during this time that Thompson's first book, Ammianus Marcellinus, was published in Britain. He subsequently moved once more – this time to direct the classics department at the University of Nottingham, where Thompson worked from 1948 to 1979. Until his retirement in 1979, Thompson served as the first Chairman of the Editorial Board of the scholarly journal Nottingham Medieval Studies, founded by Lewis Thorpe in 1957.
He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1964 – the first University of Nottingham academic to be so honoured.
Although Thompson left the staunchly pro-Soviet Communist Party of Great Britain in 1956, the year of the Soviet Union's intervention in Hungary, Thompson's academic work continued to demonstrate a Marxist-oriented outlook on history. No longer active in political life, he continued his enthusiastic interest for politics. Thompson's interest in the class structure of societies, and in their material basis, continued to direct the structure of his studies. He died, aged 79, in Nottingham.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 4, 2017
This was a short book in terms of the number of pages it included, but my goodness was this a tough read. At first I didn't mind paragraphs of questions being posed (multiple questions one after another), but after a while, that becomes very boring and not informative at all. It's also repetitive. I kept thinking, "didn't he say this already?, go back a handful of pages and yep, there it is.
In the end, I guess it was very informative if only to say almost everything we "know" about Patrick is nothing really. The shamrock explaining the trinity? Nope. That came along much later. The snakes? Same thing. There really is nothing written in his life time or shortly after his life time, other than the 2 letters which were found well after he and anyone who was alive during his life time, were dead.
This book would have been more enjoyable if it had been an article or paper written rather than a book. Even a short book.
In the end, I guess it was very informative if only to say almost everything we "know" about Patrick is nothing really. The shamrock explaining the trinity? Nope. That came along much later. The snakes? Same thing. There really is nothing written in his life time or shortly after his life time, other than the 2 letters which were found well after he and anyone who was alive during his life time, were dead.
This book would have been more enjoyable if it had been an article or paper written rather than a book. Even a short book.
November 13, 2016
Amazing how little we know about him. What we mostly think we "know" - e.g. that he brought Christianity to Ireland, he rid the country of snakes, he used the shamrock to illustrate the Trinity - turn out to be no more than later invented mythology.
March 13, 2022
Uh to dry for me.
July 8, 2016
Having never been one for hagiology, it is amazing that Who Was Saint Patrick? ended up on my shelf. Although this book is a study of the 5th century saint/missionary to the Irish, it doesn’t fit the miraculous and speculative accounts usually associated with the hagiographic literature. Who Was Saint Patrick? is informative, although often reductive, history which uses a careful methodological approach. The textual approach to Patrick’s Confessio (aka The Confession of Saint Patrick) and his Epistle to the Soldiers of Coroticus is congruent with current textual approaches to the biblical literature. The historical deductions are built off a series of questions and considerations which I would like my own history students to follow.
E. A. Thompson is first and foremost a historian. The initial section of the book is somewhat reductive in that the scholar dissects legendary aspects of the literature and focuses the reader's eyes on the definitive details of the two pieces of literature. Alas, such as with biblical texts which cannot be understood without considering the Sitz im Leben (“Setting in Life”), it is not always immediately clear exactly who Patrick’s readership was supposed to be and why there would be detailed information in one section and obscure, abstract summaries in another. Once one sees that Patrick is addressing critics (and in the epistle, supposed Christians but enemies by their actions), however, the significance of omissions or delineation of detail makes sense. Naturally, this is why biblical scholars spend so much time considering audience, authorship, and date.
So, Thompson isn’t convinced of such general assumptions as Britons on the English/Welsh/Scot mainland funding Patrick’s expedition (p. 97) or that Patrick was writing to Britons on the mainland (p. 120). He questions the literal 28 days that Patrick said his party (after he escaped from Ireland as a runaway slave) wandered in the desert without meeting someone because there isn’t enough desert even in Gaul or England (or even rural areas at the time) to do so (p. 32). Thompson also notes from Patrick’s lack of references to his predecessor(s) as bishop(s) and his single-minded focus on converting numbers of pagans that Patrick thinks of himself as a one-man show (p. 150). It is also interesting how Thompson and his sources conclude that Patrick was an ecclesiastical official who lacked tact, but had a profound sense of empathy and spiritual concern for the flock (p. 151)
Who Was Saint Patrick? is a marvelous corrective to previous assumptions and a valuable addition to “Patriciology” (Obviously, the study of Patrick, ne c’est pas?) beyond the rather non-critical work of J. B. Bury (The Life of St. Patrick and His Place in History) from the early years of the 20th century. Indeed, it is an excellent resource for both its subject matter and its methodology.
E. A. Thompson is first and foremost a historian. The initial section of the book is somewhat reductive in that the scholar dissects legendary aspects of the literature and focuses the reader's eyes on the definitive details of the two pieces of literature. Alas, such as with biblical texts which cannot be understood without considering the Sitz im Leben (“Setting in Life”), it is not always immediately clear exactly who Patrick’s readership was supposed to be and why there would be detailed information in one section and obscure, abstract summaries in another. Once one sees that Patrick is addressing critics (and in the epistle, supposed Christians but enemies by their actions), however, the significance of omissions or delineation of detail makes sense. Naturally, this is why biblical scholars spend so much time considering audience, authorship, and date.
So, Thompson isn’t convinced of such general assumptions as Britons on the English/Welsh/Scot mainland funding Patrick’s expedition (p. 97) or that Patrick was writing to Britons on the mainland (p. 120). He questions the literal 28 days that Patrick said his party (after he escaped from Ireland as a runaway slave) wandered in the desert without meeting someone because there isn’t enough desert even in Gaul or England (or even rural areas at the time) to do so (p. 32). Thompson also notes from Patrick’s lack of references to his predecessor(s) as bishop(s) and his single-minded focus on converting numbers of pagans that Patrick thinks of himself as a one-man show (p. 150). It is also interesting how Thompson and his sources conclude that Patrick was an ecclesiastical official who lacked tact, but had a profound sense of empathy and spiritual concern for the flock (p. 151)
Who Was Saint Patrick? is a marvelous corrective to previous assumptions and a valuable addition to “Patriciology” (Obviously, the study of Patrick, ne c’est pas?) beyond the rather non-critical work of J. B. Bury (The Life of St. Patrick and His Place in History) from the early years of the 20th century. Indeed, it is an excellent resource for both its subject matter and its methodology.
March 9, 2007
This is a very critical and scholarly look at the life of St. patrick. Beware the casual reader it may be quite dull.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews